Christmas Holiday Season Schedule Ideas
The Christmas holiday season includes Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. If your child is in school, it can also include your child's winter break.
Typically, both parents have time off of work and want to be with the child during this time of year. This makes these holidays and winter break an important part of your holiday schedule.
Here are some ideas of how to divide and share the Christmas holiday season.
Christmas Eve and Christmas Day examples
Here are some examples of dividing Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. If your child isn't in school then you don't need to balance Christmas with the rest of winter break.
One parent has Christmas Eve and the other parent has Christmas Day
Here the father has Christmas Eve from the 23rd at 6 p.m. to the 24th at 9 p.m. and the mother has Christmas Day from the 24th at 9 p.m. to the 26th at 9 a.m.
Here the mother has Christmas Eve from the 23rd at 6 p.m. to the 25th at 9 a.m. The father has Christmas Day from the 25th at 9 a.m. to the 26th at 6 p.m.
You and the other parent can alternate between having Christmas Eve and Christmas Day every year or you can have the same Christmas holiday time every year.
Parents alternate having one holiday
Here the mother has the Christmas holiday in even years and the father has it in odd years.
This can work very well for parents who live a long distance from each other.
With this arrangement, you may want to give the parent who doesn't have Christmas New Year's Eve and New Year's Day.
Winter break examples
If your child is in school or parents get time off around Christmas, you can include winter break holiday time in your holiday schedule. Here are some examples of how to share winter break along with the Christmas holiday.
Parents split the winter break
Here the winter break is split along with Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. The mother has Christmas Eve and the winter break time before Christmas Eve. The father has Christmas Day and the winter break time after Christmas.
Here the winter break doesn't start until the 23rd. The mother has Christmas Eve and the father has Christmas Day and the winter break until the 31st. The mother then has the rest of the winter break.
Winter break may change depending on what day of the week Christmas falls. You'll have to look at the winter break every year to decide how to split it.
With this arrangement the parents can alternate Christmas and Christmas Eve every year or each parent can have the same Christmas time every year. You may want to change it every year depending on the winter break times.
You can use New Year's Eve or New Year's Day to split the winter break.
One parent has Christmas and the other parent has winter break
The parents alternate between having Christmas or the winter break every year.
Here the mother has Christmas in the odd years and the father has winter break in the odd years. The father has Christmas in the even years and the mother has winter break in the even years.
Winter break changes every year depending on what day of the week Christmas falls on. Sometimes there isn't much winter break before Christmas so you may not include it in your schedule. For this arrangement, you'll have to look at the dates of winter break each year and see how they work around Christmas.
One parent has all of winter break
The parents alternate having Christmas but one parent always has winter break.
Here the mother has Christmas in the odd years and the father has Christmas in the even years. The father always has winter break.
This arrangement works very well for parents who live in different states or who live a long distance from each other. If there is distance between the parents, when there is winter break time before Christmas it goes to the parent who has Christmas.
This arrangement also works when one parent has more time with the child and the parents want to make the time more even. You can use a visitation timeshare calculator to see how to use winter break to give one parent more time with the child.
New Year's Eve and New Year's Day examples
How you include New Year's Eve and New Year's Day in your schedule depends on if your child has a winter break and on the parent's work schedules. Here are some examples of dividing the New Year holiday.
Include New Year's Eve and New Year's Day with the winter break
If your child has a winter break, you can make arrangements for winter break and whoever has the child for winter break on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day gets the holidays. You can see examples of dividing winter break above.
One parent has New Year's Eve and one parent has New Year's Day.
Here the mother has New Year's Eve from Dec 30th at 3 p.m. to Jan 1 at 3 p.m. The father has New Year's Day from Jan 1st at 3 p.m. to Jan 3rd at 3 p.m.
Here the father has New Year's Eve from Dec 30th at noon to Jan 1st at noon. The mother has New Year's Day from Jan 1st at noon to Jan 3rd at noon.
You and the other parent can alternate between having New Year's Eve and New Year's Day every year or you can have the same New Year holiday time every year.
Parents alternate having one holiday
Here New Year's Eve and New Year's Day are made into one long holiday. The father has it in the odd years and the mother has it in the even years.
You can make Christmas and the New Year both into long holidays with one parent having Christmas and one parent having the New Year and alternating every year.
This schedule works well for a child who isn't in school and has no winter break. It also works for parents who live a long distance from each other.
The easiest way to make a Christmas holiday season schedule
There's a lot to think about when you build a holiday season schedule. You'll want it to give the right amount of time to each parent and work for years to come.
The Custody X Change app makes it easy. Just follow our steps to make a holiday schedule.
To enter your child's winter break, create a new holiday in Step 3.
To make a custody schedule quickly and affordably, turn to Custody X Change. You'll get written and visual versions that meet your family's needs, as well as court standards.